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December 4, 1981 • Vol. 12, No. 24 • Two Sections 500 OUTSIDE OF D.C./BALTIMORE AREAS
THE GAY NEWSPAPER OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
IP Al
IF W 11. All ilk 1 I Ali ilk 11111 W Mk 1 gla IMO Y vr... MI I L.w.J111 101111 IIIII a ram a um
Ray pays
a visit
to GAA
by Jim Marks
Declaring that "folly still triumphs
over common sense" in- the govern-ment
of the District of Columbia,
Councilmember John Ray (D-At
Large) brought his mayoral cam-paign
to a meeting of the Gay Acti-vists
Alliance on November 24.
The councilmember, who ran an
abortive campaign for mayor in 1978
before dropping out of the race and
endorsing Marion Barry, directed his
remarks TO the broad themes of his
campaign and had little to say about
specific issues including Gay con-cerns,
during ids prepared remarks.
Ray blasted what he called the
incompetence of the Barry adminis-tration
and also stressed the other
two major themes of his campaign,
the need to combat crime and TO help
the city's hard-pressed middle class.
Ray's proposals to help the middle
class, which involve a roughly
sketched program of housing tax
relief, better health care, and expan-sion
of the city's efforts in public
Mayoral candidate John Ray was
critical of the Barry admbastration
during a November 24 appearance
before the Gay Activists Alliance.
education, were greeted politely by
GAA members. In response to a
question from -GAA's Government
Project coordinator Craig Howell,
Ray did promise that the final ver-sion
of his housing proposal would
continue to define lower income
Gays as eligible for home purchase
assistance. Howell's project recently
shepherded such a change through
the City Council.
Continued on page A-5
Gays and the churches
Trusting
by Brad Green
The participants at a recent United
Methodist conference in Baltimore had
just pulled their folding chairs into a
half dozen small circles. A middle aged
doctor's receptionist from Bowie,
Maryland with a warm and generous
face was the first to break the ice in one
Father Robert Nugent and Gay
columnist Brian McNaught both
spoke at there-Cent symposium on
"Homosexuality and the Catholic
Church."
a
Moral Majority wins
crimecode changes
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on
November 18 voted to eliminate a pro-vision
in the controversial Federal
Crime Code bill that would have put
the government on record as opposing
Federal prosecution of homosexual acts
in private between consenting adults on
Federal lands.
The Committee, at the urging of the
fundamentalist Moral Majority group,
also voted to eliminate from the bill sev-eral
other provisions considered by
some td be of interest to Gays, includ-ing
a provision that would have lowered
the age of consent when one partner in a
sexual ad is no more than five years
older than the other and another provi-sion
that would have removed as a Fed-eral
crime, the distribution of "obscene"
material between consenting adults.
The Committee, however, decided to
leave alone a provision in the bill that
removes gender identification from the
crime of rape, thereby extending pro-tection
for Gays who may be victimized
by same-sex rape. The committee also
left intact a provision that for the first
time provides for prosecution of sexual
abuse of a ward and removes gender
consideration, thus providing new pro-tection
for Gay prisoners abused by
those charged with their supervision.
in evolution
of the groups. She said her first contact
with someone she knew to be "Gay"
was when a man started coming to her
office to receive hormone injections in
Connection with a sex change he was
undergoing. "I liked him. I really did,"
she told -the group.
A Baltimore woman offered a differ-ent
reason for attending: "My husband
wanted to come," she said, "but he
probably was not willing to come
alone." Another man, in his forties and
dressed in a business suit, wanted to
know if home/sexuality was a choice.
They and nearly fifty other Metho-dists
had gathered on a chilly, grey day
in a church basement to discuss homo-sexuality.
One week later, November
20-22, another religious group, this
time Catholic, convened a similar con-ference
in Washington. Like their
Methodist counterparts, many of the
180 Catholic participants also had
questions.
"Do Gays need a straight sexual
experience to know they are Gay?"
asked one woman of Gay columnist
Brian McNaught. Another questioner
wanted to know about McNaught's
relationship with his lover. A nun in
charge of screening candidates for
admission to her religious order, how-ever,
expressed her uncertainty in more
personal terms: "I fmd myself not wil-ling
to deal with my own feelings," she
admitted. She said she is confronted
with the issue when women write her
asking to be admitted to the community
while at the same time declaring they
are Lesbians. Then, in a tribute to the
conference, she added, "I feel some-thing
changing inside of me. That is the
most profitable part of this weekend."
Both the Catholic and the Methodist
conferences were planned by and held
for people who consider themselves full
participants in their respective churches.
Both conferences are indicative of the
determination of grOups in many
denominations to challenge old fears
and prejudices. And, significantly, both
conferences are evidence that, contrary
to the Sunday morning exhortations of
Jerry Falwell and his electronic cohorts,
The Committee's action, which took
the form of a 'series of amendments,
received the approval of Senator
Edward Kennedy (D-Ma), a sponsor of
the Senate Gay rights bill, and virtually
all of the Committee's Democrats,
including liberals Joseph Biden of Dela-ware
and Howard Metzenbaum of
Continued on page A-4-
Virginia
group gets
underway
by Jim Marks
The Northern Virginia Gay Alliance
(NOVAGA), the Washington area's
newest Gay political organization, has
hit the ground running. Formally
organized in September, they've already
met with aides to Sen. Harry F. Byrd
(I-Va), and are negotiating similar
meetings with aides to other Virginia
representatives. In addition, commit-tees
dealing with government, police,
membership, and fundraising are in
place and working on their agendas.
NOVAGA is an offspring of Wash-ington's
Gay Activists Alliance. GAA
first tried to organize a Northern Virgi-nia
organization when it began rating
Virginia candidates for elective office
two years ago. But little happened until
this summer. In preliminary meetings
in July, Tom Depriest, now NOVA-GA's
president, told GAA members
that in 1981 Virginia members of GAA
would be able either to set up an orani-zation
or to rate candidates — not both.
GAA rated the candidates; DePriest
and others set to work forming the
organization.
"NOVAGA is organized much like
GAA," commented DePriest, "but
with a more active social component."
Like GAA, the Virginia group accom-plishes
its work through a set of semi-autonomous
committees, whose heads
report directly to the president and the
membership.
Conversations with people Who
helped begin NOVAGA — DePriest;
Tom Ainora, now the group's parlia-mentarian;
Jeff Levi, vice-president of
GAA — inevitably focus on the mem-bership's
enthusiasm.
"I've been amazed how active it is,"
commented Robert Bear, the organiza-
(..'ontinued on page -4-16 Continued on page A-3

December 4, 1981 • Vol. 12, No. 24 • Two Sections 500 OUTSIDE OF D.C./BALTIMORE AREAS
THE GAY NEWSPAPER OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
IP Al
IF W 11. All ilk 1 I Ali ilk 11111 W Mk 1 gla IMO Y vr... MI I L.w.J111 101111 IIIII a ram a um
Ray pays
a visit
to GAA
by Jim Marks
Declaring that "folly still triumphs
over common sense" in- the govern-ment
of the District of Columbia,
Councilmember John Ray (D-At
Large) brought his mayoral cam-paign
to a meeting of the Gay Acti-vists
Alliance on November 24.
The councilmember, who ran an
abortive campaign for mayor in 1978
before dropping out of the race and
endorsing Marion Barry, directed his
remarks TO the broad themes of his
campaign and had little to say about
specific issues including Gay con-cerns,
during ids prepared remarks.
Ray blasted what he called the
incompetence of the Barry adminis-tration
and also stressed the other
two major themes of his campaign,
the need to combat crime and TO help
the city's hard-pressed middle class.
Ray's proposals to help the middle
class, which involve a roughly
sketched program of housing tax
relief, better health care, and expan-sion
of the city's efforts in public
Mayoral candidate John Ray was
critical of the Barry admbastration
during a November 24 appearance
before the Gay Activists Alliance.
education, were greeted politely by
GAA members. In response to a
question from -GAA's Government
Project coordinator Craig Howell,
Ray did promise that the final ver-sion
of his housing proposal would
continue to define lower income
Gays as eligible for home purchase
assistance. Howell's project recently
shepherded such a change through
the City Council.
Continued on page A-5
Gays and the churches
Trusting
by Brad Green
The participants at a recent United
Methodist conference in Baltimore had
just pulled their folding chairs into a
half dozen small circles. A middle aged
doctor's receptionist from Bowie,
Maryland with a warm and generous
face was the first to break the ice in one
Father Robert Nugent and Gay
columnist Brian McNaught both
spoke at there-Cent symposium on
"Homosexuality and the Catholic
Church."
a
Moral Majority wins
crimecode changes
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on
November 18 voted to eliminate a pro-vision
in the controversial Federal
Crime Code bill that would have put
the government on record as opposing
Federal prosecution of homosexual acts
in private between consenting adults on
Federal lands.
The Committee, at the urging of the
fundamentalist Moral Majority group,
also voted to eliminate from the bill sev-eral
other provisions considered by
some td be of interest to Gays, includ-ing
a provision that would have lowered
the age of consent when one partner in a
sexual ad is no more than five years
older than the other and another provi-sion
that would have removed as a Fed-eral
crime, the distribution of "obscene"
material between consenting adults.
The Committee, however, decided to
leave alone a provision in the bill that
removes gender identification from the
crime of rape, thereby extending pro-tection
for Gays who may be victimized
by same-sex rape. The committee also
left intact a provision that for the first
time provides for prosecution of sexual
abuse of a ward and removes gender
consideration, thus providing new pro-tection
for Gay prisoners abused by
those charged with their supervision.
in evolution
of the groups. She said her first contact
with someone she knew to be "Gay"
was when a man started coming to her
office to receive hormone injections in
Connection with a sex change he was
undergoing. "I liked him. I really did,"
she told -the group.
A Baltimore woman offered a differ-ent
reason for attending: "My husband
wanted to come," she said, "but he
probably was not willing to come
alone." Another man, in his forties and
dressed in a business suit, wanted to
know if home/sexuality was a choice.
They and nearly fifty other Metho-dists
had gathered on a chilly, grey day
in a church basement to discuss homo-sexuality.
One week later, November
20-22, another religious group, this
time Catholic, convened a similar con-ference
in Washington. Like their
Methodist counterparts, many of the
180 Catholic participants also had
questions.
"Do Gays need a straight sexual
experience to know they are Gay?"
asked one woman of Gay columnist
Brian McNaught. Another questioner
wanted to know about McNaught's
relationship with his lover. A nun in
charge of screening candidates for
admission to her religious order, how-ever,
expressed her uncertainty in more
personal terms: "I fmd myself not wil-ling
to deal with my own feelings," she
admitted. She said she is confronted
with the issue when women write her
asking to be admitted to the community
while at the same time declaring they
are Lesbians. Then, in a tribute to the
conference, she added, "I feel some-thing
changing inside of me. That is the
most profitable part of this weekend."
Both the Catholic and the Methodist
conferences were planned by and held
for people who consider themselves full
participants in their respective churches.
Both conferences are indicative of the
determination of grOups in many
denominations to challenge old fears
and prejudices. And, significantly, both
conferences are evidence that, contrary
to the Sunday morning exhortations of
Jerry Falwell and his electronic cohorts,
The Committee's action, which took
the form of a 'series of amendments,
received the approval of Senator
Edward Kennedy (D-Ma), a sponsor of
the Senate Gay rights bill, and virtually
all of the Committee's Democrats,
including liberals Joseph Biden of Dela-ware
and Howard Metzenbaum of
Continued on page A-4-
Virginia
group gets
underway
by Jim Marks
The Northern Virginia Gay Alliance
(NOVAGA), the Washington area's
newest Gay political organization, has
hit the ground running. Formally
organized in September, they've already
met with aides to Sen. Harry F. Byrd
(I-Va), and are negotiating similar
meetings with aides to other Virginia
representatives. In addition, commit-tees
dealing with government, police,
membership, and fundraising are in
place and working on their agendas.
NOVAGA is an offspring of Wash-ington's
Gay Activists Alliance. GAA
first tried to organize a Northern Virgi-nia
organization when it began rating
Virginia candidates for elective office
two years ago. But little happened until
this summer. In preliminary meetings
in July, Tom Depriest, now NOVA-GA's
president, told GAA members
that in 1981 Virginia members of GAA
would be able either to set up an orani-zation
or to rate candidates — not both.
GAA rated the candidates; DePriest
and others set to work forming the
organization.
"NOVAGA is organized much like
GAA," commented DePriest, "but
with a more active social component."
Like GAA, the Virginia group accom-plishes
its work through a set of semi-autonomous
committees, whose heads
report directly to the president and the
membership.
Conversations with people Who
helped begin NOVAGA — DePriest;
Tom Ainora, now the group's parlia-mentarian;
Jeff Levi, vice-president of
GAA — inevitably focus on the mem-bership's
enthusiasm.
"I've been amazed how active it is,"
commented Robert Bear, the organiza-
(..'ontinued on page -4-16 Continued on page A-3